Against the Attack of Polish Politicians on Holocaust Researchers

Our institute is now being attacked for our Holocaust research by the Minister of Science and Education. Below is the official resolution of our Scientific Council.
“In an interview for TVN24 on April 19, 2023, on the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Professor Barbara Engelking, head of the Center for Holocaust Research at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, outlined the situation of the Jewish population - both fighters and civilians - during the uprising and, more broadly, during the German occupation.
She devoted part of her statement to the attitude of the ethnic Polish population towards the Holocaust. She emphasized the heroism of those relatively few Poles who helped the Jews, but also recalled the frequent phenomenon of blackmail and the widespread resentment of Poles towards Jews. She said that Poles failed the Jews, and that falsifying history involves minimizing Polish hostility towards Jews and presenting heroic attitudes as commonplace. She spoke in a balanced and nonaggressive manner
This multi-faceted statement, based on many years of research, by one of the world's leading experts on the Holocaust, met with a sharp and inadequate reaction from top government officials. In a tweet, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki described Professor Engelking's words as "scandalous," and in an interview with TVP Info called them "mendacious."
Minister of Education and Science Przemysław Czarnek has said that he has ordered "very broad interuniversity research as part of the NPRH, to show municipality by municipality the involvement of Polish society in saving Jews during the Holocaust. This is so that such people as those on TVN24 could never again offend the Poles who were murdered by the Germans for this reason. "[statement on Twitter]. Following these speeches, a hateful attack on Professor Engelking began in state and right-wing media.
The Scientific Council of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences expresses its indignation at the words of Prime Minister Morawiecki, and its complete solidarity with Professor Engelking, who is currently experiencing a smear campaign. It is a dangerous situation when the prime minister of a democratic state, using the authority of his office, launches an ideologically motivated attack on an independent scholar.
We object to Minister Czarnek's statement, which clearly implies that he plans to commission research at public expense to confirm a pre-adopted thesis. Such action would be unacceptable from the point of view of scientific ethics and the law governing scientific activities.
We also object to Minister Czarnek's additional statement in an interview with TVP Info that: "This is a scandal and unparalleled impudence by this lady [...]. I will certainly revise my financial decisions, because I will not finance on a larger scale an institute that maintains people of this kind who simply offend Poles. “ In our opinion, this threat constitutes an unacceptable attempt to limit the freedom of scientific research.
The Scientific Council of IFiS PAS also wishes to emphasize that the Center for Holocaust Research headed by Professor Engelking, which has been operating for 20 years, is a unit of IFiS PAS with an extremely rich and important record of international research achievements. We will continue to support and protect the activities and further development of the Center, we also count on the support of a democratic state in this regard.”